


Mr. Bennet: Local Magistrate

by AMarguerite



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Gen, Murder Mystery, a very silly murder mystery to be clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 10:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17344001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: There's been a sudden death at Netherfield! Not to worry, the local magistrate, Mr. Bennet, is on the case. Vaguely. He's at least making jokes about the case.





	Mr. Bennet: Local Magistrate

**Author's Note:**

> meri47, who always seems to spark off fic ideas, asked who the most prominent members of Meryton society would be and I speculated that the Bennet family, being the most prominent family in the village near Longbourn, might also be the largest local landowners in Meryton which might, in turn, make Mr. Bennet the local magistrate, a la Mr. Knightly in Emma. 
> 
> Did I actually research this to see if it was possible? No! lordaskentil made a joke, and I wrote this silly examination of Mr. Bennet: World's Least Helpful Local Magistrate instead.

“Well,” said Mr. Bennet, “that certainly is a dead body.”

This was not the most helpful thing he could have said, upon entering the drawing room of Netherfield and seeing Mr. Hurst, apparently drowned in a punch bowl. Mrs. Bennet took pains to loudly point this out to her husband.

“And what would you have me do?” objected Mr. Bennet. “The man is dead. It seems a hopeless business."

"You might assist Mr. Hurst, sir!"

"There is very little I can do for him at this point, besides confirm Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley’s speculations. Mr. Hurst is most decidedly deceased.”

“I think,” said Elizabeth, who had remained with them, to temper her mother’s reactions, in the face of Mr. Bingley’s shock and Mr. Darcy’s disapproval, “Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley have called upon you in your official capacity as magistrate, Papa, not to verify their suspicion.”

“Yes, I daresay they both are capable of recognizing a corpse when they see one. Even Cambridge must teach that.” He stepped into the room and, nudging aside a bit of lemon rind, approached the body. “Dreadful mess. Was the lemon here earlier, Lizzy?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy moved the body, but not anything else.”

Mr. Bennet peered at Mr. Hurst. “Well then. In my official capacity as magistrate, I do aver that Mr. Hurst is dead.”

“But was he murdered, Mr. Bennet?” demanded Mrs. Bennet. 

“Is this something your wife and daughter should witness, sir?” Mr. Darcy asked disapprovingly. 

“Mrs. Bennet could not be stopped from coming. And Lizzy came across the body, did she not, when she came down from Jane's sickbed and heard the two of you exclaiming over it?”

Darcy unwillingly admitted to this. 

“You see, Mr. Darcy, it cannot hurt my daughter to see what she has already seen,” said Mr. Bennet, idly poking at the fire. “Otherwise, ordinary life would be quite impossible.”

Mr. Darcy frowned. “As a magistrate myself–”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Bennet, beginning to tire of this. He scanned the room idly. “I daresay you are used to dealing with such crime up north, but in the civilization of Hertfordshire, we are considerably less accustomed to these matters.”

“Should I fetch Louisa?” Mr. Bingley asked weakly. “It is only– she has not yet finished dressing for dinner, and I do not know what to tell her.”

“I have sent for a Bow Street Runner,” said Mr. Darcy.

“A Bow Street Runner!” exclaimed Mrs. Bennet.

“You suspect foul play, sir?” asked Elizabeth, much surprised. “But the windows and doors were all locked. Do you suspect one of the guests? We were all dressing, and can call upon maids or manservants to prove it. Or perhaps the servants? This close to serving dinner, they would all be accounted for.”

“I have already questioned Nichols on that subject,” said Darcy, “and am sure that all persons within the household are accounted for; none of them could have killed Mr. Hurst.”

Mrs. Bennet gasped. “I knew it! I know they had to have sent the militia into Hertfordshire for a reason– we shall all be murdered in our beds, by the same smugglers that killed Mr. Hurst!”

”Yes, landlocked Hertfordshire certainly is the ideal base of operations for a smuggling ring,” opined Mr. Bennet.

Mrs. Bennet then seized upon the French as the most likely villains, and spun a tale of such wild inventiveness it bewildered Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy into gaping wordlessly, mortified Elizabeth into silence, and amused Mr. Bennet into letting her continue.

“Well my dear,” said Mr. Bennet, when she had reached her dramatic conclusion, “as much as I do wish Mr. Hurst was a spy spent on purpose by Napoleon to snatch Jane away, as the most beautiful woman in England– such a lovely resonance with the classics; it is nice how in his imperial ambitions he reaches further back than Rome to Troy– I must tell you that as soon as I walked into the room, it became very clear to me that Mr. Hurst squirted himself in the eye with a lemon he was using to make rum punch, and, thus blinded, backed into the chimney piece, knocking himself unconscious. He then fell forward, into the bowl, and drowned.”

The four others looked on Mr. Bennet with astonishment. 

“Pity,” said Mr. Bennet. “I have tried that recipe myself; it makes for a remarkably good punch. What a waste.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [These Strange Series of Events](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17424020) by [itsmeliz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmeliz/pseuds/itsmeliz)




End file.
